The fact is tha we know now, from careful reading of PE's KTB, that she was not firing at Hood when she blew up but had switched fire to PoW on Lutjen's orders at least 2 minutes earlier.

steffen19k wrote:I think a better question would be whether or not Hood's gun crews were bypassing the flash protection features and procedures to speed up time between salvos. Its been a documented case of British capital ships, dating all the way back to the loss of 3 battlecruisers at Dogger Bank.

That IS a good question, especially given that the Jutland report incriminating the stacking of cordite and abandonment of safety procedures was nixed by Jellicoe when he became First Sea Lord at the Admiralty. I believe that Barham was carrying extra ammo and charges outside of magazine protection when she blew up after capsizing, which could have contributed to that explosion. Whether or not that was the case with Hood will never be known (unless it's in some still "most secret" document that won't see the light of day for another 30 years!).

But that does not efface the fact that it was Bismarck's and only Bismarck's shells that were falling around Hood when she exploded, and it was Bismarck's shells that possessed the penetrating power to punch through Hood's armour and reach a magazine.

I think it needs to be repeated, as this little detail is frquently overlooked - at the time Hood blew up the Prinz Eugen was shooting at Prince of Wales and not Hood.

Prinz Eugen originally opened fire on Hood as the lead British ship, obtaining two hits that we know about. Then Lutjens ordered Brinckmann to shift fire on to the POW because while Bismarck was also shooting at Hood the POW was not up till then under any German fire. This order was executed immediately prior to Hood blowing up.

I tend to think that Prinz Eugen's (PG)shell which started the fire on the boat deck must have first struck Hood's after funnel, which may explain why it burst on or above the boat deck rather than passing through the deck and exploding beneath. The resulting fire was impressive but not fatal as far as the ship was concerned. To my mind, the only way PG could get a strike into Hood's after magazine was for a near miss to pass beneath the armour and through the soft shell plating. She got at least one such strike to enter PoW after Hood blew up. PG had shifted fire to PoW on Lutjens' orders before Hood took her fatal hit, as has been illustrated earlier, so she could not have struck the fatal blow.

It is my firm belief that it was a shell from Bismarck which did for Hood and given the relatively flat trajectory of Bismarck's high velocity shells, it is unlikely to have resulted from a turret strike or a strike on the belt or decks. Hood's armour fore and aft was equal to that of a Queen Elizabeth class and her armoured decks and that over the magazines would have been more than enough to defeat Bismarck's shells, because of the shallow angle of strike due to their flat trajectory. I am strongly of the belief that it was a wet strike to starboard causing the shell to pass beneath the armoured belt and directly into the after magazine. Bismarck took serious damage from a wet strike herself and it is fortunate that the strike was not in a magazine.

All very interesting, but why should it have been a single she'll strike.
Consideration to fires on deck are very valid. Therefore the picture in "biography of battle cruiser..." show masses of 4" ammunition not even in the RUL.
Considering this trail of ammunition it is still plausible that the Torpedo cooked.
Ultimately a Torpedo storage going of would have broken her back exactly where she broke. Additionally it could lead as with Barham to secondary conflagration including 4" and 15" magazine.
This could better explain the lack of blast removing turrets and going directly up if a 15" was penetrated.

Ultimately though we do not and will probably never know. So as probable as Bismark, it is certainly possible that Torpedo could still be responsible. (Note DNC was largely ignored on this point.). This makes it possible that PE shell assisted if not actually caused the fire.
I would note that this is conjecture on my point and Tiger had a raging fire of similar scale at Dogger.

From my very light knowledge of torpedoes detonation effects , I would say that torpedo warheads detonating outside water are very unlikely to broke the back of such a large ship and they can't penetrate the Hood armored decks (even if thin and not armor grade....).

Torpedo warheads (hard to detonate when not activated) can make fires worse on the upper decks and kill a lot of people but not sink the Hood (IMHO) as their devastating effect is due to the fact they are built to explode under water. Above the waterline, they would have dissipated most of their energy in the air.

Bye, Alberto

"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)